


Beautiful Liar

by haseelo



Category: K-pop, VIXX
Genre: Angst, One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-30
Updated: 2018-01-30
Packaged: 2019-03-11 08:26:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,128
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13520397
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/haseelo/pseuds/haseelo
Summary: If you knew you were going to die tomorrow, what would you do differently today?





	Beautiful Liar

**Author's Note:**

> Trigger warning for death and suicide! 
> 
> Angst loosely based on LR's Beautiful Liar because it's given me so many feels and the lyrics are fic-fodder.
> 
> Half inspired by the song lyrics and half inspired by a character I rped with. Hakyeon here has shinigami eyes for those of you who are confused. He sees when a person will die from a number that appears on top of the person's head. 

The numbers are never wrong.  

Taekwoon looks in the mirror. His hair is disheveled. His eyes are bloodshot, and his skin is pale.  His lips are parched and so is his throat. He hasn’t slept in days, and hasn’t spoken in weeks. Not since he left. No, not since he made him leave.

He sinks to the floor, swallowing hard, eyes staring blankly at the floor. He wants to yell out, to cry. But words won’t form and he had used up his tears long ago.

There’s a pounding at the door. Hakyeon’s voice sounds through from the other side of the sturdy oak door. “Taekwoon-ah,” his voice is pleading. “Come out and talk to me, please.”

Soulless eyes regard the door. So badly, he wants to go over to the door and find solace in the only friend he has left. “JUNG TAEKWOON!!!” The scream is desperate, and Taekwoon wonders if Hakyeon can see his number through the door. He wonders what it’ll show him, when the number should be less than one. Will it show a digital clock? A countdown?

“P-Please.”

Taekwoon can hear the catch in Hakyeon’s voice. He can almost hear the other’s heart cracking. But he can’t open the door. He’s held on for so long, remained strong for so long. He can’t give in now. Not when the end is so close.

-

“You have to believe me, Taekwoon-ah.”

“You need help.”

“It’s true!! I swear on my life!” Hakyeon pointed over at a random man walking down the street, “His is 2387.” His finger pointed at someone else, a girl in her teens, “23951 days.” Next was an elderly lady with a bag of groceries, “Hers is…” Hakyeon’s frantic voice suddenly hushed.

Taekwoon rounded on him, “Go on. Tell me. What is this old lady’s number? When is she going to die?”

Hakyeon just froze in place, eyes fixed on the woman in horror. “No….” was the haunted whisper. The vocalist rolled his eyes.

“Now.” Hakyeon’s voice is void of emotion, and his eyes are filled with tears. Taekwoon raises his head at a shiver-inducing screech of tires, just in time for him to see the grocery bag, contents spilled. A car was where she was standing a few seconds ago.

Hakyeon wipes his tears away furiously and stalks away.

And Taekwoon is left standing there numbly.

-

“You’re fucking around with me.”

“I promise you I’m not.”

“All of a sudden?”

“The decisions you make change the numbers, Taekwoon. That’s always been the way it worked.”

“And now it’s…?”

“52.”

Taekwoon’s heart dropped like stone. “52,” he repeated dumbly.

Hakyeon dissolved into tears, “I’m so sorry,” he said over and over again. The taller man just took a step back and shook his head, “It’s… okay. It’s not your fault…”

-

“What’s going on with you, hyung?” Wonshik’s voice was annoyed, words clipped. “You’ve been unresponsive for days. I thought we were past all the silences.”

Taekwoon couldn’t even raise his eyes to see Wonshik’s anger, bubbling just under the surface.

Sanghyuk walked over. He’s always hated when his hyungs fought. But before he could even say a word, Wonshik walked off, curses muttered under his breath.

Sanghyuk looked at him silently, before shaking his head minutely and walking away, presumably to follow the rapper.

-

It had begun with Wonshik. Then it was Hongbin. Eventually, Sanghyuk and Jaehwan also had enough of his attitude.

Hakyeon tried. He desperately tried. But it was difficult. He was the only one who could see the numbers, and on some level, he understood why Taekwoon did what he did. But that didn’t stop his heart from breaking as the members abandoned the mute vocalist.

Hakyeon couldn’t be left to hurt like that, Taekwoon decided. So he broke his silence for a few minutes. A few minutes to say the words that leave an irreparable chasm between him and the men he called brothers.

“Take your head out of your ass. You’re not my mother; don’t hover over me like one. None of us are related by blood. Why the fuck does it matter to you? Just keep up appearance for fans and it’ll be fine. We live together, we train together because our agency says we have to. We’re not brothers. We’re barely business partners. Grow up.”

-

He’ll never forget the shock, the hurt on their faces. It wasn’t surprising that they gave up on him shortly afterwards, when he returned to his mute state, fake anger in his eyes.

Hakyeon pounds on the door so hard it shakes, “Jung Taekwoon, PLEASE!”

Taekwoon’s eyes slowly start filling with tears he didn’t know he still had. Why did he still have to care? Why was Hakyeon so persistent?

“I am going to break this fucking door down!”

Hakyeon never swore. None of them really did. Taekwoon wants to ask the elder what his number is. It is a zero? Is it some decimal? Or is it a digital clock counting down with the days column at 00?

He sits there, back propped up against the frame of his bed. As a tear falls, Taekwoon hears a faint splash as it hits the photograph in his hands. Six smiling faces peer back up at him, his included.

 _I’m sorry._  His lips form the words that won’t leave his throat.

Thuds from the direction of the door signal Hakyeon throwing himself at the door in an attempt to break it down.

Taekwoon smiles softly through the tears that are now blurring his vision and slipping down his hollow cheeks.  

He sees the abandoned ring lying on the dresser, and musters up the last of his energy to pick it up and slip it on the ring finger of his left hand, where it belonged. He had put it away through all of his charades, in an attempt to show the members he no longer cared. But he can’t leave without it.

 -

Hakyeon finally breaks through the door an hour later, cuts and bruises littering his body. And when his eyes set on the lifeless body of his best friend, his heart breaks. He’s seen many people die before his eyes, but none had prepared him for this one. The death of his best friend. Taekwoon is lying on the ground, on his side, an old photograph of the six of them lying on the floor. Hakyeon picks up the small photograph, and stops himself from shaking just long enough to read the words scrawled on the back of it in familiar hand-writing.

He reaches out a trembling hand to brush Taekwoon fringe away from his closed eyes. As he looks away, he sees the thin silver band wrapped around Taekwoon’s ring finger.

_I’m sorry.  
Please be happy and live well. _


End file.
